A quick refresher on Rule 5 draft eligibility:

A player who signed when 18 years old or younger is eligible for the draft after five years. A player who signed at age 19 or older is eligible after four years. According to the rules, it’s how old a player was on the June 5th immediately preceding his signing. The cost of each pick is $50,000 paid to the organization losing the player. If a player is selected, that player must remain on the active MLB roster or disabled list for all of the 2017 season, lest he be run through waivers and offered back to his original team for $25,000.

Thanks to all the trades that Doug Melvin and David Stearns have made over the last two years, Milwaukee’s farm system is stuffed with more talent than we’ve ever seen before. The club added Lewis Brinson, Josh Hader, Brett Phillips, Ryan Cordell, and Taylor Williams to the 40 man roster last month to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft, but the Brewers still were unable to safeguard all of the prospects who could draw interest from other teams around the league. Jim Goulart over at Brewerfan.net has a comprehensive list of all the Rule 5 eligible players within the Brewers’ minor leagues, and here are the players who are the most likely to attract attention during this year’s draft:

LHP Wei-Chung Wang
Doug Melvin and company memorably selected Wang in the 2013 Rule 5 Draft from Pittsburgh, at which point he had never pitched above rookie ball. It wasn’t pretty, but Wang stuck with the team all through 2014 and the Brewers were able to retain his rights. After a poor start to the 2015 season in high-A, the Brewers were able to pass Wang through outright waivers and remove him from the 40 man roster. Over the last year and a half since then, he’s re-established himself as a legitimate left-handed pitching prospect. Wang spent last season split between AA Biloxi and AAA Colorado Springs, posting a combined 3.78 ERA in 133.1 innings pitched. He struck out 21 percent of the batters he faced (7.7 K/9) while walking just 6.4 percent (2.4 BB/9), and both FIP (3.38) and DRA (3.96) largely supported his results on the mound.

Despite his success in the minors this year, the new front office regime apparently didn’t feel the need to protect Wang. That didn’t stop JJ Cooper of Baseball America from identifying Wang as one of the top Rule 5 Draft eligible players, noting that while he doesn’t throw as hard as he did a couple of seasons ago – “his fastball is average at best and gets some fringe average grades” – he features an “excellent” changeup to go along with an average slider along with good command and control. Fangraphs’ KATOH projections similarly identified Wang as one of the top left-handers available. The 24 year old (25 next April) does have only five years of club control left after having already spent a season in the big leagues, but he’s an MLB-ready arm who could soak up innings next year at the back-end of a pitching needy team’s starting rotation.

RHP Miguel Diaz
Diaz was an international signee by the Brewers back in 2011 at the tender age of 16 and only just turned 22 a few days ago on 28 November. He spent all of 2016 in Appleton with the Class-A Timber Rattlers, tossing 94.2 innings with a 3.71 ERA and marks of 8.7 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9. Both FIP (3.59) and DRA (3.30) feel he was even better than his solid earned run average showed, as well.

We don’t typically see younger, less experienced prospects like Diaz taken in the Rule 5 Draft, which may be why Slingin’ Stearns didn’t feel compelled to protect the youthful right-hander. As we saw with the Padres selection and retention of Luis Perdomo last year, however, it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. Diaz has quite the promising profile, too; an eye-witness report by BP’s Grant Jones earlier this year graded Diaz as having a 60 OFP, saying he has the “[u]pside of good number three pitcher; risk factor makes power reliever very possible.” Diaz received future grades from Jones of 70 for his fastball, which sat 95-96 MPH and touched 98, along with 60 for his slider and 55 for his changeup. A selecting team could theoretically utilize Diaz’s fastball/slider combination out of the bullpen this year with the idea of continuing his development as a starter in the minor leagues once his contractual rights are retained.

OF Kyle Wren
The Brewers picked up Wren in a minor trade with the Braves during the 2014-15 offseason, shortly after his father Frank was fired as Atlanta’s general manager. The diminutive left-handed hitter played all three outfield positions for both AA Biloxi and AAA Colorado Springs in 2016, slashing an impressive .322/.412/.412 across a combined 471 plate appearances at the two levels. With Milwaukee’s crowded outfield situation, however, Wren wasn’t able to find his way on to the 40 man roster after his strong campaign.

Wren’s game offers very little power, as he owns just an .079 ISO and five home runs in 448 career minor league games. He’s a speedster who has stolen at least 29 bases in all four of his professional seasons, has a line drive approach to all fields and is considered an above-average defender. Wren has only struck out in 13.5 percent of his career plate appearances and showed an increased ability to draw free passes in 2016. Wren walked 13.4 percent of the time this past season after posting just a 7.8 percent walk rate during his first three seasons in the minors. KATOH pegged the 25 year old (26 next April) as the top outfielder available in the Rule 5 Draft, with author Chris Mitchell adding “[f]rankly, I’m surprised a player of Wren’s caliber went unprotected.”

Others Who Could Draw Interest:
UTIL Nate Orf
1B/OF Garrett Cooper
RHP Josh Uhen
RHP Angel Ventura

Related Article:
2016 Southern League bats

So we continue with the Pacific Coast League variation of the contextual minor league statistics for Milwaukee Brewers prospects. I began this series in order to judge each player within his own age group within his own league, in order to keep players in groups that are more likely to fit their own developmental standpoints. For instance, Orlando Arcia ought not to be judged on the same scale as a Garin Cecchini or Will Middlebrooks, two players with MLB experience that are receiving a second chance in the Brewers organization; while those two might be judged moreso on their ability to get back into the grove and produce quality outcomes on the plate, a prospect at Arcia’s age and developmental standpoint may be more likely to work on improving one specific aspect of his game. In fact, for his age-21 season, Arcia completely shifted his strike zone discipline, improving his walk rate significantly, while also striking out more; for all the complaints about the rookie’s slow-rising batting line and .212 TAv, Arcia is already posting a walk rate that has hovered around 10 percent since leaping to the majors. So, a project such as “improving plate discipline” could help to explain why other areas of Arcia’s bat “took a step back” in 2016.

Not unlike the Southern League, a wide variety of professional ballplayers work in the Pacific Coast League. Many second-chance MLB players work in the most advanced minor league level, giving the Pacific Coast League the look of an organizational depth association. Yet, a few supremely young players rush through, and there are even organizational depth players that remain young for AAA (such as Garrett Cooper, for instance, who is “old” for AA and “young” for AAA).

Not surprisingly, isolating players with more than 5 PA, there are many different performance levels, age-by-age, on the Pacific Coast:

While it does not necessarily seem surprising that the youngest players in the league lack slugging numbers, or overall offensive performances that match the general impression that the PCL is a “free-for-all,” it was surprising to see how quickly the slugging tails off after age-25. Slugging percentage jumps once more at age-27, but then players working in the PCL between age-28 and age-35 seasons generally do not provide large slugging totals for their work. Hypothetically, one might guess that if a player is at age-28 and slugging effectively, they get their chance to work at the MLB level, while glovemen or bat-control depth guys are more likely to work their late-20s seasons at AAA; this is only one possible explanation.

By my count, the Brewers organization featured 15 players at AAA Colorado Springs that had rookie status entering the year. The vast majority of these players were young or relatively young for Class-AAA ball.

A few notes:

• Without any regular age-19 or -20 bats in the Pacific Coast League, Arcia was basically tied for the youngest regular position player in the league (with Padres’ top prospect, Manuel Margot, who had one of the best seasons in the entire PCL).

• Contrary to popular belief, Arcia showed excellent discipline and excellent isolated power for his age group.

• Garrett Cooper had a surprisingly good batting line, which I did not expect given my assumption that older players would be held to harsher performance criteria at AAA.

• Lewis Brinson really stormed the league in his Brewers debut!

• While Brewers fans commonly focused on his MLB struggles, Keon Broxton put together a great AAA campaign, even (especially?) for the league’s median age.

• Kyle Wren did nothing but hit in 2016, but he lacks isolated power behind his strong AVG and OBP totals. One wonders whether he’ll get his MLB shot in Milwaukee, given the stacked tools situated in the crowded Brewers outfield.

• Garin Cecchini produced a solid line for his age group, although the slugging did not come for the second-chance rookie. Cecchini could potentially profile as a contact-discipline depth player, but the lack of power could hurt a corner-defense profile.

• BPMilwaukee featured Nate Orf as one of the Three-Up players at midseason, given his batting profile and utility glove. Hopefully Orf makes it to the MLB!

• One wonders whether Yadiel Rivera and Ramon Flores will stick around in the organization for their respective gloves; unfortunately, their bats did not come around in 2016.

LHP Brent Suter:  (W, 3-0) 6.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K — 2.59 ERA
RHP Jaye Chapman:  1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K — 2.95 ERA
3B Matt Dominguez:  2-for-4, HR (7), 2 RBI, 2 R, K — .250 AVG
CF Kyle Wren:  2-for-5, 2B, RBI, K — .261 AVG

Biloxi Shuckers: (29-27), 3.0 GB

RHP Jorge Lopez:  6.0 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K — 2.29 ERA
LHP Jed Bradley:  (W, 1-1) 2.0 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K — 3.75 ERA
3B Nathan Orf:  3-for-4, BB, R — .276 AVG
2B Yadiel Rivera:  1-for-5, RBI — .290 AVG

Brevard County Manatees: (25-31), 10.0 GB

RHP Brandon Woodruff:  (W, 4-5) 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K — 3.58 ERA
RF Clint Coulter:  1-for-3, 2B, RBI, BB, K — .246 AVG
2B Chris McFarland:  1-for-4, 2B, R — .269 AVG

Wisconsin Timber Rattlers: (20-35), 17.5 GB

RHP Angel Ventura:  6.0 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K — 3.12 ERA
LHP Kodi Medeiros:  (L, 4-4) 2.0 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 3 K — 4.48 ERA
3B Tucker Neuhaus:  2-for-4, R, K — .237 AVG
SS Jake Gatewood:  1-for-3, BB, SB (5), K — .229 AVG

Helena Brewers: (8-16), 6.0 GB

RHP Conor Harber:  4.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 1 HR — 3.71 ERA
RHP Alex Farina:  (W, 1-2) 2.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R (0 ER), 0 BB, 1 K — 3.94 ERA
C Max Ghelfi:  1-for-3, 2B, BB, 2 R — .298 AVG
RF Carlos Belonis:  1-for-4, RBI — .254 AVG
CF Troy Stokes:  2-for-3, BB, SB (19) — .253 AVG

AZL Brewers: (11-13), 3.0 GB

RHP Nash Walters:  1.0 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K — 4.58 ERA
RHP Jordan Desguin:  5.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K — 1.78 ERA
RHP Colton Cross:  (L, 0-1) 0.1 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 0 K — 2.76 ERA
CF Trent Clark:  1-for-3, RBI, 2 BB, 2 SB (20), 2 R, K — .311 AVG
2B Gregory Munoz:  3-for-3, RBI, 2 BB, 4 SB (6), R — .213 AVG
SS Gilbert Lara:  3-for-5, 2 RBI, SB (3), R, 2 K — .251 AVG

DSL Brewers: (32-40), 14.0 GB

Season completed.

Prospect of the Day:  OF Kyle Wren, Colorado Springs

With the departure of Carlos Gomez, center field is vacant in Milwaukee for the first time in years. Domingo Santana and Shane Peterson currently split time in center, but neither are long-term options at the position, for various reasons. Many Brewers fans have looked to Brett Phillips or Michael Reed as the answer in center next year; however, neither profiles to be ready offensively for the big leagues. Both have too much swing-and-miss at the plate to be rushing them to the big leagues before having an opportunity to conquer Triple-A Colorado Springs.

Instead, an underrated option is 24-year-old Kyle Wren. The Brewers acquired him from the Atlanta Braves over the offseason when the Braves parted ways with general manager Frank Wren, Kyle’s father, as a courtesy to all involved. The Brewers got someone who was a career .294/.353/.367 hitter in the minors with the defensive chops necessary to handle center field. Jim Callis from MLB.com ranked Wren in the Braves’ top-20 prospects last winter. Wren ultimately handled Double-A Biloxi with aplomb, hitting .300 with a .370 on-base percentage. The transition to Triple-A has been a bit rockier, but he is hitting .261/.304/.312 in 234 at-bats and his slash line has been slightly better than that since the All-Star break. Although it’s not a sexy profile, it’s perhaps one that’s most ready for the big leagues. It’s an offensive profile that’s built around plate discipline (64 strikeouts and 38 walks in 461 at-bats this year) and stolen bases (31). If he can be above-average defensively, he’s someone who can provide sneaky value on a rebuilding team, especially at the league minimum.

This, of course, is working under the presumption that the Brewers do not sign a center fielder this offseason — which I think they could — or acquire one via trade. Looking internally, though, fans would be wise to look beyond the big, popular names like Brett Phillips and Michael Reed. The guy perhaps most poised to steal some playing time in center field is actually Kyle Wren.